1. Field of the Disclosed Embodiments
This disclosure relates to systems and methods for generating and detecting unique identification signatures for customer replaceable components or units (CRUs) for use in customer owned and/or controlled image forming devices.
2. Related Art
All manner of image forming devices make use of consumable products, such as inks and toners, and otherwise include customer replaceable components or units (CRUs), many of which are routinely replaceable based on a limited service life. In the latter instance, the service life of a particular CRU may be tracked and measured, for example, according to a number of image forming operations that the CRU may undertake. Depending on a level of sophistication in the image forming device, a customer or end-user may be provided feedback regarding a condition of a limited-service-life CRU or a remaining level of consumable in a CRU in the image forming device. Customers and end-users may be provided with alerts to warn them regarding an impending end-of-service-life condition for a CRU, or a pending exhaustion of a particular consumable in a CRU in the image forming device.
Companies that manufacture and sell image forming devices generate substantial post-sale revenue from the separate business of selling, to the customers and end-users to which they have previously sold the image forming devices, replacement CRUs. Based on the significant revenue that may be available in the marketplace for replacement CRUs, whether new, refurbished, refilled or the like, recent years have witnessed a growth in companies whose business is to manufacture, remanufacture, refurbish, refill, or otherwise provide “gray” market replacement CRUs for use in image forming devices. The steep increase in the growth of companies manufacturing and selling “gray” market components adversely affects the companies that manufacture and sell the image forming devices for customers and/or end-users. There are measurable economic effects based on the loss of revenue from the customers and/or end-users purchasing replacement CRUs from sources other than the image forming device manufacturers. More subtle, however, are the intangibles such as the potential for an impact on the reputation of the image forming device manufacturer in instances where specific users experience poor image quality for images produced on a particular image forming device without recognizing that the fault may lie not with the image forming device itself, but rather with the quality of the less than optimally compatible replacement CRUs that have been procured and installed in the image forming device.
The companies that manufacture and sell image forming devices to customers and end-users, therefore, have a significant vested interest in attempting to combat the use of “gray” market replacement CRUs in their image forming devices. The schemes employed by the image forming device manufacturers may include contractual schemes such as specifically warning their customers and/or end-users that the use of non-company manufactured replacement CRUs in a particular image forming device will invalidate any warranty protection on the image forming device. There will remain, however, customers and/or end-users that are willing to accept voiding the warranty as a trade-off for potential cost savings associated with procuring and using “gray” market replacement CRUs.
Industries that manufacture machinery of all types, including companies that manufacture and sell image forming devices, make extensive beneficial use of capabilities to externally monitor operating conditions of myriad CRUs in all manner devices and systems with which the CRUs are associated. The monitoring of these CRUs is often facilitated through the use of externally or remotely electronically-readable monitoring modules for monitoring one or more characteristics of the CRUs. The monitored characteristics can include static information, i.e., information that does not change over the life of the CRU, such as a model or serial number and/or compatibility matching information for the CRU with the system or device within which the CRU is intended to be installed. The monitoring module can also be used to record, in an electronically-readable format, dynamically changing information relating to a particular characteristic of the CRU. Such dynamic information includes, for example, information on use, maintenance, failures, diagnostics, remanufacture, and/or remaining service life, among other characteristics of the CRU.
Outputs from these electronically-readable monitoring modules are received locally at the system or device via module reading components in the device and are often displayed on some manner of graphical user interface (GUI) associated with the system or device within which the CRU is installed. Additionally, outputs of these electronically-readable monitoring modules may be remotely received by, for example, suppliers and manufacturers based on the customer or end-user granting electronic access to the device. In this manner, the manufacturer or supplier can independently monitor the status of a particular CRU in order to provide service and supply replacement CRUs to customers and/or end-users at a point and time of need.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,351,621 to Richards et al. (Richards), which is commonly assigned and the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, discloses CRUs, which routinely include electronically-readable monitoring chips containing static information for identification of the CRUs, and/or dynamic information relating to a particular CRU's operating status. Richards refers to such electronically-readable monitoring chips as customer replaceable unit monitors (CRUMs).
Richards explains that, when an individual CRU is installed in the disclosed modularly-designed office equipment, a communication interface is established with the CRUM as a component status monitoring module located within, or externally mounted to, a particular CRU. The CRUM enables the office equipment to monitor a characteristic of the CRU by reading data from, and potentially updating the information contained by writing data to, the monitoring module.